It seems, though, that the latter can blow up too, as one Pennsylvania woman discovered to her misfortune.

72-year-old Loretta Luff says that she was checking email and playing spider solitaire when her Dell Inspiron laptop simply exploded. The battery pack flew across the room.

"The next thing I knew, my shirt was on fire, I grabbed that and took that off and I think that's when I singed my hair," she told CBS Philadelphia.

Luff ended up with burns to her foot, arm and face. "My foot is the worst," she told ABC Philadelphia. "And I think when I came down on a piece of the hot battery part, I came down and stepped on that."

Her carpet, desk and even her dog's bed were damaged. She told Philly.com that doctors had to remove "stuff" from her nostrils.

Preliminary examination by firefighters suggests -- as is often the case with cell phone fires -- that the battery might have been the culprit.

Dell, in a statement alluded to the idea that the battery may not have been an approved one.

It read, in part: "Dell will take appropriate steps to investigate this incident. It's also important to note that, in our product documentation, Dell tells customers that "using an incompatible battery or a third-party battery may increase the risk of fire or explosion and that they should replace the battery only with a battery purchased from Dell that is designed to work with their Dell computer."

About the author

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world.
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